WEYBURN – Saskatchewan’s Water Security Agency advised that the communities of Weyburn, Sedley and their surrounding areas recently received heavy rainfall in a short period of time, temporarily exceeding the design limits of their wastewater systems.
In a statement from City of Weyburn’s chief engineer, Jennifer Wilkinson, there is monitoring of the situation and no drinking water advisory has been needed to this point.
“The City of Weyburn was required to bypass untreated sewage from our treatment system due to excess rainfall on June 21, 2022. We are currently testing upstream and downstream of the discharge site. We do daily monitoring and testing within our Water Treatment Plant to ensure parameters haven’t changed. There is no drinking water advisory at this point. We will continue to test and monitor to ensure no parameters have changed,” she said.
These communities needed to bypass untreated sewage from some or all portions of their sewage collection and treatment systems to protect their systems from failure; to protect property, and/or to reduce public health risks.
All bypasses are required by the municipalities to be reported to the provincial spill centre and WSA is working with these communities to monitor and ensure appropriate actions are taken during and after bypass events to reduce public health risks, including notifying downstream users.
The public should avoid waterways that may be affected in these communities where the untreated sewage are being bypassed.
